


The Long Road Home

by TragicLove



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 12:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16516400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TragicLove/pseuds/TragicLove
Summary: Staying away had been easy at first, until it wasn't.Or- Luke returns to Hill House to say he's sorry, even though he knows he shouldn't.





	The Long Road Home

Staying away had been easy at first, until it wasn’t. 

Luke knew he shouldn’t go back there, to the house where it had all fallen apart. Four years into his sobriety had lead him to be able to finally see things clearly, everything that had happened to them had happened because of that house. If it weren’t for the crumbling walls and almost maze like halls, Nell would still be here, Mom wouldn’t be dead, he most likely would have never stuck that first needle in his arm, sending him down a years long spiral into full blown heroin addiction. 

But he had to go. He had to see her. If for nothing more than to help himself shove down some of the guilt he was living with to this day. If it weren’t for him, she’d still be alive. If it weren’t for him, she would never have been in that God forsaken house that night, she would have never held that teacup in her tiny hands, lifted it to her tiny mouth and drank. 

He’d thought that maybe she’d come to him someday. Visit him in the middle of the night, sit on the end of his bed. Maybe she’d just be there, silently, the way they used to hang out when he was still the age that she’d forever be. 

Someday never came. He’d waited, he’d thought about her every single night for more years than he cared to count. The first time he had gotten high, he’d thought she’d come. They’d had a whole conversation, he’d told her everything he had always longed to say. It wasn’t until he was coming down from his high that he’d realized she had never been there at all. 

It took him years to figure it out, his mother had killed his best - no, only - friend. She’d wanted to kill them all. She’d poured the tea into the cups and she’d pushed them in front of each of them and if it weren’t for Dad, they’d have all gone the way that Abigail had. Maybe they’d have been better off. 

As he pulled into the driveway, turned the headlights off, silenced the engine, he almost considered turning around. He’d let her down before, he couldn’t do it again. She deserved to know that he’d spent so many years being sorry, so many years grieving the loss of her. She deserved to know that she had been loved. 

It wasn’t easy, picking that old, rusted lock, but he managed. The too-big doorknob stuck, nothing a little wiggling couldn’t take care of. Stepping into the foyer sent a wave of memories down onto him, almost none of them particularly good. He could see them all standing there, the night of the storm, when Nell had disappeared for a little while. They’d all panicked, but when she turned back up, she’d insisted she’d been there all along, she was screaming for them, but they couldn’t hear her. That was Nell’s life, after all. Screaming, screaming so loud, but not being heard. He pressed his palms gently against his eyes, shaking away the vision of them that night. That night wasn’t the night he was here to make up for, that night could wait.

The floor creaked underneath his feet, little puffs of dust rising up into the air around him. Steve could do a better job taking care of the place, it was his now after all. Luke supposed it didn’t matter, no one in their right mind would set food in this house, never mind live in it, for all anyone cared it could rot away for the rest of time. So long as it stayed standing, so the families still living within these walls could remain together - including theirs. 

“What are you doing here?” The stern voice shocked him, an f-bomb dropping from his mouth as he jumped an inch or so into the air. When he turned, there she was, Mrs. Dudley, just the way he remembered her, a tiny newborn baby wrapped up and in her arms.

“I came to see her,” Luke took a step towards Mrs. Dudley, who held her arm up in front of her as if to tell him not to take another step. 

“She’s not here,” Mrs. Dudley said evenly, drawing her baby closer to her chest.

“I know she’s here, she’s tied to here. We both know that.”

“You can’t see her, Luke,” Mrs. Dudley spoke evenly. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

“No,” Luke spoke quietly, looking towards the old, ripped up floor. “I’ve never gotten to say I’m sorry.”

Luke backed up in time to see Mrs. Dudley’s eyes move to over his shoulder, her lips forming into a tight frown.

“This isn’t right,” her eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Luke turned and there she was - not the she he had come to see, but the she he was hoping to. He walked to her, wrapping his arms around her cold body, surprised it was as solid as it was.

“Nellie,” he whispered into her hair, it still smelled the same.

“You came,” Nell pulled back a little, smiling up at him. “I told them you’d come someday.”

“Luke?”

The little voice startled them both, and they turned to the side to see her standing there, her blue dress exactly the same, her wide eyes locked on him. 

“Abigail,” he smiled, letting go of Nell and walking over to where the small girl stood. He crouched down and put his hands on her elbows, squeezing a little bit. 

“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” the young girl said quietly.

“Never,” Luke shook his head. “I came to see you. And you,” he looked up at Nell.

“Can we play?” Abigail asked

“Of course we can,” Luke smiled, bringing himself back to standing. Abigail slipped her cold little hand into his, pulling him gently towards the hallway, to where exactly he wasn’t sure - he guessed he’d find out when they got there. 

He could hear them talking before he saw them, his mothers light voice floating through the house, his father laughing at something she was telling him. When they breezed around the corner and into the hallway, walking right towards him, it was almost as if they were alive. Almost, but not quite.

“Luke finally came!” Nell cheered, walking quickly over to their parents. “I told you he’d come!”

“Well, look at you,” Olivia smiled, and Luke could swear she actually floated over to him. “A sight for sore eyes. Welcome home, my love.”

“I can’t stay long, I just wanted to-” he looked down at Abigail and then back at his mother, the sudden realization that seeing her had never been in his reasons for wanting to return to this hellish place. Once he’d figured it out and it all became clear, he’d stopped missing her. “Visit,” he finished. “I wanted to visit.”

“Visit? But, oh, you just got here!” Olivia smiled, placing her hand on his cheek. “You can’t leave us now.”

“Liv,” Hugh stepped up beside her, grasping her wrist lightly and removing it from Luke’s face. “Luke can’t stay, you know that.”

“But can’t you? Just for a little while?” Nell asked, her smile so familiar after all of this time, and it flipped a switch suddenly, made him think.

Could he? 

He’d been missing them so much, Nell and Abigail, and even his father - though he supposed that that particular brand of missing was something else entirely. And the rest of them? Theo and Shirley and Steve? What did he bring to them aside from their constant need to be on watch? Always waiting for his next slip up, never letting their guard down for the next time he’d let them all down. 

“Can’t you stay, Luke?” Abigail looked up at him with those big eyes, and he’d let her down so bad before. He’d let her down and left her there all those years ago.

“I know!” Olivia clapped her hands together, just once, her smile as radiant as he’d always remembered. “Let’s just sit together, all of us. Just for a little while. A tea party sounds just perfect, doesn’t it, my loves?”

“A tea party!” Nell echoed, walking towards her brother and taking the hand that wasn’t holding Abigail's. “It’s been so long since we’ve done that, Luke, can we?”

He meant to say no, turn and leave and go back to Steve’s spare room where he’d been living for the past two years, but it was Nell, and it was Abigail and he’d been missing them so bad.

“A tea party,” he grinned, nodding his head once. He looked down at Abigail and winked, “why don’t you lead the way?”

As they made their way through the halls of the house that he’d left but had never really left him, he could swear he heard the whispers of dozens of voices, words like _finally_ and _he’s home now_ , echoing off the crumbling walls around them, but it didn’t scare him, not anymore. 

Sometimes we take the long way, but we always find our way home.


End file.
